Night of Worship thoughts

October 15, 2012

3 minute read

On Sunday, October 14, we had our first ever Night of Worship at Two Rivers Church. We’ve had worship nights before but this was our first in this vain. We changed the vision, name, and feel for the night from what it had been in the past. This post is a collection of my thoughts from the night.

Whenever you do something new, you never know how it’s going to play out. Will it be a huge success? Will it be a waste of time? Will it just be simply good? There’s no way to know until you’re in the moment, and many times you don’t even know until you’re knee deep into it.

Last night we knew pretty quickly.

We set up 350 chairs in our Worship Center. We wanted to give people room to be free and move around, plus we didn’t want it to feel stuffy or like “church.” When Tae, our Worship Arts Pastor, originally told me we were going to have 370 chairs set up, I was scared we were going to have a lot of empty chairs. We took it back to 350 because we simply didn’t know what would happen. We had a team on standby just in case we filled those chairs up and needed more.

At 6:27, three minutes before we were to start, we needed more chairs.

We played a countdown and then had an intro video that tied in with the series our church has been doing and cast vision for the night. At the end of that video, before a single note was played, people applauded and cheered.

That was just the start.

By the chorus of the first song, the place was packed. People were lined around the walls and in the open spaces singing, worshiping, dancing, and completely engaged in a way that I’ve never seen in the two and a half years that I’ve been at Two Rivers.

Again, that was just the start.

After our opening worship set, we had a small teaching moment. Our high school pastor and future church planter had a really short teaching on how God fills us up only to send us out. This led to a really, really cool time of people responding in many different ways. There were hugs. There were prayers. There were tears. God was doing something in the people of that room that just doesn’t happen on a Sunday morning. And I had the best seat in the house.

I have the privilege of producing our services. I sit upstairs in front of a big glass window overlooking everything. I can see the stage. I can see the chairs. I can see everything. From my bird’s eye view, I get to see the big picture and not just the people surrounding me. Last night I saw a church body that came together to spend time with God. They chose to take time out of their weekend that wasn’t routine or normal to come and join with others to worship God. And he honored that.

He showed up.

Whenever you do something new, you never know how it’s going to play out. Will it be a huge success? Will it be a waste of time? Will it just be simply good?

Last night was incredible.

Thank you to the entire Worship Team. This group rehearsed Saturday night, after church, until past 10:00pm and then were back on Sunday afternoon at 4:30 to rehearse even more, most after playing in our weekend services. Thank you guys for giving your time.

Thank you to Bill and Ashleigh – we couldn’t have heard the music or known what words to sing without you. You guys led worship in your special way.

Thank you to Tae – you killed it dude. From the get go you led this thing great. We couldn’t have done this without your leadership. Great job.

Thank you to Erin and Erin – no one will ever know the things you two did behind the scenes to make this work. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Thank you to Two Rivers Church – you guys showed up ready to worship. You lived Beyond Religion. You all showed what a group of authentic followers of Christ are supposed to look like. Thank you for worshiping with us.